How playing golf alone can make you better at your job

I have a book coming out this month called Solo Golf (Workman), which is exactly what it sounds like: a case for playing golf by yourself.

This has struck some people who know me as, if not contradictory, then at least a little ironic.

“You?” they say. “Aren’t you the great golf networker?”

They’re not wrong. For decades, golf has functioned as a kind of informal professional infrastructure — part networking event, part relationship builder, part slow-moving deal room. The cliché of golf as business lubricant exists for a reason. Entire careers have been nudged forward on tee boxes and sealed on greens. And historically, access to that world — particularly at private, often men-only clubs — was not just a matter of recreation but of opportunity, which is why it became a flashpoint in workplace equity debates.

In other words, the sport has long been less about solitude than about proximity — to power, to colleagues, to possibility.

Which is why suggesting that people should sometimes play alone can sound, at first pass, like a rejection of what makes the game professionally valuable — or valuable to professionals.

But solo golf isn’t a rejection.

The argument of Solo Golf is not that you should abandon the foursome, the client round, or the leisurely walk-and-talk with colleagues. Those experiences have enduring value, both human and professional. The argument is that adding a solo practice — occasional rounds played entirely by yourself — can make those social rounds more meaningful and, perhaps counterintuitively, make you better at the very business functions golf has traditionally served.

Because what golf offers in groups is connection. What it offers alone is something else entirely.

Anyone who has spent time on a golf course knows that the game is as much mental as it is........

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